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Performing Feminism ‘Badly’ Curating in Feminst Thought Performing Feminism ‘Badly’: Hotham Street Ladies and Brown Council Laura Castagnini Women’s Art Movement? Why might contemporary feminist artists work collaboratively, use domestic techniques and materials and, in doing so, appropriate second wave feminist methodologies? Finally, what’s so funny about this approach? I will suggest that the humorous and revisionist tendencies evident in You Beaut! can be characterised as ‘parafeminist parody’. Situated within the post- 2000s resurgence of interest in feminism worldwide, parafeminist parody refers to the current trend in contemporary feminist art to mimic or cite aspects of earlier feminist practices. Parafeminist parody is an interpretation of art theorist Amelia Jones’ concep- tual framework of “parafeminism” read through the lens of Linda Hutcheon’s revised theory of parody, and intends to explicate the forms of humour cur- rently emerging in contemporary practices such as the Hotham Street Ladies. The term parafeminism, first articulated in Jones’s groundbreaking book Self/Image (2006), uses 1 the prefix “para” to denote a model of contemporary art practice that runs “parallel to,” rather than “post,” If you needed to pop to the loo during my earlier forms of feminism: it is “a conceptual model of curated exhibition Backflip: Feminism and Humour in critique and exploration that is simultaneously parallel Contemporary Art, you would have stumbled across a to and building on (in the sense of rethinking and cake-frosted uterus spurting sugary menstrual blood pushing the boundaries of, but not superseding) all over the gallery toilet floor.1 The gooey site-specific earlier feminisms.”2 It characterises an intersectional installation, entitled You Beaut! (2013), was the handi- form of feminist art practice that refutes coalitional work of Melbourne art collective the Hotham Street identity politics and adopts a “rethinking” and expan- Ladies and created entirely from edible cake decora- sion of second wave feminist methodologies.3 tions, including icing sugar, sprinkles and raspberry Another aspect of parafeminism is that it belies con- lollies (for the... err... clots). As well as rendering Mar- flicting attitudes and proximities to feminism: to use garet Lawrence Gallery’s bathroom inoperative for Jones’ words, it “embrace(s)” the confusion of “the the show’s duration, You Beaut! provoked a series of meaning, significance, and status of feminist—or interrelated questions that I would like to explore in parafeminist—visual practice today.”4 this article. What does it mean for female artists to insert menstrual blood—the female grotesque par I would like to further Jones’ theory of excellence—into the gallery more than four decades parafeminism by arguing there is parodic potential in after the emergence of such subject matter in the its historical homage, when read through the lens of 108 Issue 29 / May 2016 Performing Feminism ‘Badly’ Curating in Feminst Thought Hutcheon’s theory of parody. Hutcheon differentiates second wave strategies of the 1970s and, as will be parody from satire: a form of humour which, she later discussed, inversion of the 1990s Bad Girls phe- argues, is always mocking, while parody’s definition nomena. includes works that mimic, refer or pay homage In this way, parafeminism enables contempo- through their utilisation of irony which “can be playful rary feminist practitioners such as Hotham Street instead of belittling.”5 The etymological root of the Ladies to own and build upon the history of feminist prefix ‘para,’ which is shared by parafeminism and art through parodic strategies of homage and cita- parody, provides the foundation for Hutcheon’s the- tion. ory. She argues: The prefix para has two meanings, only one of which is usually mentioned – that of “counter” or “against”… However para in Greek can also mean beside, and therefore there is a sugges- tion of an accord or intimacy instead of a con- trast.6 The doubleness of parody’s root ‘para’ leads Hutcheon to a new definition of parody which, I suggest, is particularly relevant to parafeminism: 2 Parody… is repetition with difference. A critical distance is implied between the background Rethinking Earlier Feminisms text being parodied and the new incorporating Parafeminist parody reveals itself in the work of work, a distance usually signalled by irony. But the Hotham Street Ladies (HSL): Cassandra Chilton, this irony can be playful instead of belittling: it Molly O’Shaughnessy, Sarah Parkes, Caroline Price, can be critically constructive as well as destruc- and Lyndal Walker. The collective, all of whom lived at tive. The pleasure of parody’s irony comes not one time in a Melbourne share house in Hotham from humor in particular but from the degree Street in Collingwood, cite their inspiration as “groups of engagement of the reader in the intertextual such as mother’s auxiliaries and the Country Wom- “bouncing” (to use E.M Forster’s famous term) en’s Association. They also come together out of between complicity and distance.7 necessity to make things for the enjoyment of their community and for the enrichment of girly chat.”9 While Hutcheon’s insights broaden the term HSL pay homage to women’s collectives of the past parody to include “beside”, and thus account for through their titling as “ladies”, their celebration of strategies of complicity and homage, I reverse Hutch- female friendship, and enjoyment of traditional eon’s logic to argue that parafeminism can be domestic activities of baking, cake decorating and expanded to include the term “counter”, and thus craft. However, HSL’s practice exploits the grotesque account for strategies of distance and critique. This elements of food and share-household living to pres- methodology elucidates two important elements of ent incongruities between ideals of femininity and the parafeminism: firstly, Hutcheon’s insights convey that Ladies’ lived experience as women today. the term parafeminism etymologically has two con- tradictory meanings pertaining to complicity and HSL’s first collective effort was The HSL Contri- distance. Thereby, I extend Jones’ theory to ascertain bution Cookery Book (2004), a community recipe book, that parodic pleasure in reading parafeminist prac- after which their work has traversed a broad range of tices is produced by the viewers’ engagement in materials and contexts including: Hotham Street House “bouncing” between complicity and distance.8 Cake (2008), a cake creation of the original share- house exhibited in a gallery; Frosting, (2008–), an Secondly, I argue that the parafeminist strategy ongoing series of street art rendered in icing; Green of “rethinking” earlier forms of feminism can be read, Bin (2011), an oversized public sculpture of a recycling through Hutcheon’s theory, as a parody of the past. bin; and their most ambitious project to date, At Thus contemporary feminist art—or parafeminist Home with the Hotham Street Ladies (2013), an installa- art—can be considered as a temporal parody of previ- tion that transformed the foyer of the National Gal- ous “waves” of feminism: embodying both homage to lery of Victoria into two comically messy domestic 109 Issue 29 / May 2016 Performing Feminism ‘Badly’ Curating in Feminst Thought living spaces meticulously crafted through cake deco- lated by societal norms, and the subsequent failure to ration. HSL’s representation of the abject—food, mess, conform. At the same time, however, the cakes are and bodily functions—is offset by their skilful mimicry meticulously detailed and demonstrate enormous of middle-class femininity through craft and baking technical skill: suggesting a sincere celebration of the techniques. women’s work displayed at the Royal Melbourne Show. Further, HSL pay tribute to female characters and artists, thus remixing and presenting them in divergent cultural contexts. Therefore a dialectic of critique and homage operates within HSL’s parodic performance, demonstrating Hutcheon’s argument that parody can include “critically constructive” strat- egies of homage.13 The cakes demonstrate comic theorist Simon Dentith’s argument that within parody “the polemic can work both ways: towards the imi- tated text or towards the ‘world.’”14 Thus, to use Dentith’s logic, HSL draw on the authority of precur- sor texts (the cake contest, the novel, the singer) to attack and satirise elements of the broader “world” (gender stereotypes).15 I want to characterise the dialectic between critique and celebration of women’s work that emerges in HSL’s work as a distinct strategy 3 of parafeminist parody that relates to its “rethinking” of earlier feminist histories. However, before we can For three years in a row, from 2009-2012, HSL answer the questions posed at the beginning of this submitted absurd entries to the Royal Melbourne article in relation to HSL’s installation You Beaut! Show Cake Decorating competition. Their first effort (2013), the performative element of this temporal was Pizza Cake (2009): a crude cake creation that parody needs to be further elucidated. To this end, I depicted two pizza boxes emblazoned with a HSL will draw upon the work of another Australian femi- emblem as well as half eaten crusts, an ashtray, and a nist art collective who combine cake and collectivism remote control. They didn’t win, but the following to restage earlier feminist histories. year the collective offered Miss Havisham Cake (2010) for the contest: a destroyed three tiered wedding cake which included fake mice scampering through- out detritus of broken columns and a missing plastic groom that was inspired by the unhinged female character in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. Much to the artists’ amusement, the second cake was dis- qualified for being “in bad taste.”10 The judges’ com- ments read: “Be aware that the exhibit is in bad taste. You are presenting something that is food-based and should be pleasing to the eye. A nice idea but not 4 suited for a major competition.”11 In response, in 2011 HSL presented Amy Varden (2011), a cake that Performing “Badly” depicted the recently deceased pop singer Amy Wine- Brown Council’s work responds to the physical house.

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